Britten had a far darker side

"Andrew Pincus lauds Benjamin Britten for his tolerance as well as his musical genius (Eagle, March 30.) We all appreciate an aversion to war, but most of us are not pacifists. I don't know the circumstances of Britten's residence in America during World War II. The British television program "Foyle," among the finest I have seen, takes us again into the heart of a people who survived an onslaught that seemed irresistible. Every available man was needed to stop Hitler's invasion."

Sad to say Rabbi Caine, but there are A LOT of pacifists who live in the Berkshires and who even during WWII registered as Conscientious Objectors.

I admit to being taken aback by Rabbi Caine's comments on Benjamin Britten. The folk song setting to which he refers was undoubtedly offensive in it's original form. I do note however that the text Jews wife was changed to the Schoolmistress in Britten's setting. That does not erase the vileness of it's origin of course.
As for the characterization of his War Requiem setting, we all know that Abraham did not slay his son because God intervened. Wilfred Owen , using Abraham as a metaphor for the WW1 generation, had him ignore God and kill his son to illustrate and comment on the horrors of that war, which erased "Half the seed of Europe one by one". I do not believe that he or Britten intended to blame the Jewish people for that war or anything else, but merely wished to show man's inhumanity to man.